I you’re like most people, you think the only thing that matters when losing weight is calories, i.e., calories in versus calories out. The calorie theory, as you will see, is a physiological impossibility.

Calorie is a shortened name for kilocalories, to reflect the simplified math. A kilocalorie contains 1,000 calories, so the Angus Burger with bacon and cheddar is actually 770,000 “calories.” Now don’t get your panties in a bunch! This simplified math also applies to exercise calorie charts. If the cardio machine you’re using says you burned 200 calories, it’s simplified for 200,000 calories. However, don’t rely on exercise equipment charts; they are grossly inaccurate.

To understand why it’s not calories that matter when getting lean, go HERE.

Is performing cardio the best way to lose fat?
There are 3 things to keep in mind about cardio when trying to get leaner. One is that it doesn?t build muscle. Two, it doesn?t preserve muscle while losing weight. Both are extremely important if your goal is not only to get leaner, but to stay that way. As we lose weight the body does not discriminate where the weight comes from. We lose muscle along with fat, especially on a low calorie diet. And performing cardio accentuates this phenomenon.

Lastly, unless you enjoy cardiovascular training, it?s just not worth the time. The work to benefit ratio is dismal to say the least. Unless you?re willing to bust your butt and perform 60 ? 90 minutes of cardio a day, which will hinder your muscle building capacity, cardio is not worth it.

Will training your abs using the right exercise our equipment give you washboard abs?

Is reducing your calories the best way to lose weight?

If I’m not sore a couple of days after a workout, did I not train hard enough?

Get the answers to these and other common fitness myths in my Fitness Myths Busters article.

For decades we have been taught that fat is bad for us, carbohydrates are good, and that the key to a healthy weight is eating less and exercising more. Yet with more and more people acting on this advice, we have seen unprecedented epidemics of obesity and diabetes. With seven years of research, Taubes argues persuasively that the problem lies in refined carbohydrates (white flour, sugar, easily digested starches) ?via their dramatic effect on insulin, the hormone that regulates fat accumulation?and that the key to good health is the kind of calories we take in, not the numbers. There are good calories, and bad ones. Taubes traces how the common assumption that carbohydrates are fattening was abandoned in the 1960’s when fat and cholesterol were blamed for heart disease and then?wrongly?were seen as the causes of a host of other maladies, including cancer. He shows us how these unproven hypotheses were emphatically embraced by authorities in nutrition, public health, and clinical medicine, in spite of how well-conceived clinical trials have consistently refuted them. He also documents the dietary trials of carbohydrate-restriction, which consistently show that the fewer carbohydrates we consume, the leaner we will be.

Good Calories Bad Calories is the end of the debate about the foods we consume and their effects on us.